Thursday, November 15, 2012

Beyond the One Drop Rule (or: Between Black and White)

Hola Everybody,Just in case you didn’t know, November is National Puerto Rican
Heritage Month. In addition, you’re probably not aware that in the last
election, Puerto Ricans voted for statehood. Well, actually, it’s a lot
more complicated than that (a plurality didn’t vote for
statehood, for example), but I won’t get into that right now. In the
meantime, I offer the following in the hopes that you find it useful.

-Naaaahhh... You ain't no Porta Reecan.

-I keep telling you: The boy is a Black
man with an accent.

-- Wille Perdomo (for Piri Thomas), Nigger-Reecan
Blues

Growing
up, I had a friend we nicknamed, “Shadow.” Shadow was a Golden Gloves champion,
a Puerto Rican whose dark skin earned him the moniker. He was dark, but not as
black as another childhood friend we used to call “Blue.” Blue was an African
American, a cocolo, as
Puerto Ricans sometimes refer to African Americans (and, yes, it was a
pejorative).

The
thing with Shadow was that, though he was dark-skinned, he had a sister who was
very light-skinned -- light-skinned as in “white” not “Creole,” or “high
yellow.” In fact, they looked as if they came from different families. I have
blue eyes and I am light-skinned and growing up, I was often mistaken for being
white. Shadow and I used to hang out and we would be supportive of each other
(as in “watching each other’s backs”) because we identified as Puerto Ricans.

Blacks
and whites would often get very confused around us Puerto Ricans because we
would refuse to identify as either black or white. I am not white, in the sense
that I identify with whiteness as it is constructed in the U.S. Shadow didn’t
identify as black as it is defined in the U.S. What we were -- what we identified
as first -- was Puerto Ricans.

This
caused many problems for Puerto Ricans. At home, we were treated equally
regardless of our skin color: there was no “white Puerto Rican” vs. a “black
Puerto Rican,” we were brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles. We were
familia, and skin color wasn’t a determining factor for accessing love
or whatever benefits our families could provide.

The
same, however, wasn’t true when we were exposed the social institutions. At school,
we were often separated. For example, though my darker-skinned cousin at home
was just as smart as I was, he was often placed in less advanced classes than I
was. And though I was never taught to identify as white (and I still don’t), I
learned very quickly that I was given preferential treatment because of my
Eurocentric features. We all learned this early on in our lives. In some
cases, it served to makes us cling more closely together, in other instances it
was a source of conflict, pain and, grief.

We
were also pressured by our peers to identify according to the dominant racial
paradigm. The worst insult you could pay me was to call me white. Not because I
had anything against whites, but because by identifying me solely by the color
of my skin, you were robbing me of my autonomy, my choice to define myself, and
my choice to maintain and honor my cultural heritage. More insulting was the
pressure to stop us from speaking Spanish. I remember getting in deep trouble
once when I responded to one teacher asking, “Can’t you speak English?!!” by
saying, “Fuck you, is that English enough for you?”

It
was the same for the darker-skinned Puerto Ricans, they also would come under immense
pressure to identify as black. Therefore, if there was some sort of conflict,
and Shadow chose to stick with me (and I with him) we were ostracized for being
“sellouts” or “nigger lovers.” Truth be told, most of the time, we didn’t
really give a fuck, but it bothered all of us at some deeper level. Or perhaps
we were all experiencing what some sociologists call perceptual dissonance: A tension within the field
of awareness of the characteristics that constitute one’s self. Whatever the case, it wasn't until we
all read Piri Thomas' semi-biographical account of growing up Puerto Rican in
New York, Down
These Mean Streets, that we found an outlet to discuss and internalize
these issues.

I
still hear complaints from my African American brothers and sisters, who become
frustrated when Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean Latin@s insist they are not
black. For African Americans, our resolve toward cultural identification
amounts to a denial of our blackness, and to a degree, it is, but I don’t think
that sentiment captures the the full story. When Shadow (who would eventually
identify as an African American) used to say he wasn’t black, he wasn’t denying
his blackness, he was attempting to assert his own identity, his culture, his Latinidad,
his Puerto Ricanness. It’s the same with me when I correct people about my
assumed “whiteness.” We were saying we were Puerto Rican.

To
be sure, there is racism in the Caribbean; to say otherwise is, in my
estimation, a racist. However, how Puerto Ricans and other Latin@s define, talk
about, and conceptualize race is very different from the way it is constructed
and mediated in the United States. I believe Latin@s have something to offer to
the profoundly dysfunctional racial dialog (or lack thereof) in the U.S.

Let
me start with a rather controversial issue. In the 2000 census, the residents
of the island of Puerto Rico (effectively a colony of the USA), claimed itself
to be 81% percent white. This is in stark contrast to Mainland Puerto
Ricans in the United States, where only 46% identified as white (as an aside,
when I was last incarcerated, I identified as black). This finding caused a
shitload of controversy with people from all over the ideological map making
claims ranging from it being proof of Puerto Ricans' denial of their African
heritage, to countless other assumptions. What also was not lost was the fact
that Puerto Rico was whiter than the U.S., where 75% identified as white. And
of course, part of the reason for this is that some Puerto Ricans feel a need to
dis-identify from American blacks – a marginalized group unjustly burdened with
stereotypes. This is a hard truth, but it isn’t the full truth. I think we need
to contextualize these numbers properly. Culture and context, my friends, is
everything.

First,
let’s take note that there is a racial ambivalence in Puerto Rico that doesn’t
exist in America. In Puerto Rico, racial identification is less
important than cultural identification. This is why I can identify as
black, but if you looked at me from an American perspective, you would find that
silly (which goes to show, on the other hand, that the full breadth and scope
of black physical expression is seriously skewed in this society). One study
showed that some dark-skinned Puerto Ricans will identify as “white” while some
light-skinned Puerto Ricans will identify as “black.” We just don’t think of
race in the same way Americans do and we are, strictly speaking, a demographer’s
nightmare. In the U.S., the opposite is true: racial identification largely,
determines cultural identification. Therefore, as I have demonstrated earlier,
when asked the all-too divisive question, “What are you?” Puerto Ricans of all
colors and ancestry usually answer, “Puerto Rican.” In contrast, most New
Yorkers will likely answer, black or white (or maybe even Jewish or “of Italian
descent”). I am not saying that Puerto Ricans feel no racial identification, but
rather that cultural identification is more important.

Another
important factor is that Puerto Ricans’ perceptions of race are based more on phenotypic
and social definitions of what is a person than on genotypic knowledge
about an individual. Put simply, physical and social appearance, instead of
biological classification, is used to define race. In the U.S., the legal
definition of white meant that the biological offspring of a mixed race union
would be considered black (i.e., the “one drop” rule). In that way, the
children of a white slave owner and a black slave would still be considered
slaves. This legal definition did not exist in Puerto Rico (and other Spanish-speaking
Caribbean islands). The progeny of slave and master were considered free.

For
Puerto Ricans, a white appearing offspring of an interracial couple could be
considered white. On the other hand, an obviously dark-skinned person may not
be considered as black (as defined by Americans), especially if there are other
mitigating factors, class being a prime consideration.

Another
aspect of racial classification for Puerto Ricans is that racial categories are
based on a mixture of skin color, class, facial features, and the texture of
hair. This is quite different to the mostly color-based, white, black, yellow,
and brown U.S. racial paradigm. This makes for a fuller spectrum of racial
perspectives for Puerto Ricans. For us, there are blanco/as (the equivalent
of U.S. whites); indio/as (the equivalent to the U.S. conception of East
Indians -- dark-skinned and straight-haired); moreno/as are dark-skinned
with a variety of features -- black and white; negro/as are black as
conceptualized in the U.S. Interestingly, this latter term is also used as a
term of endearment, equivalent to the English “honey” or “sweetie” and having
no racial connotation. It was not uncommon to hear my parents, both of whom
were light-skinned with blue eyes, affectionately call each other, “negrito/a.”
Finally, there is the term, trigueño/a, I often use, which can be
applied to what is considered brunettes in the U.S. or to negro/as who
have high social status. For me, trigueño/a is a racial catch-all term.
It can be applied to both white-looking and black-looking Puerto Ricans.

I
will finish this already too-long post by emphasizing the importance of the
contrast between a multiracial, multiethnic society versus a homogenous
society. While in the U.S., racial/ ethnic minorities have been segregated, the
same doesn’t hold true for Puerto Rico. In this way, blacks in Puerto Rico were
not a distinguishable ethnic group. This is not to say that blacks are
evenly distributed throughout the social spectrum. Race and class still
intersect in ways that serve to marginalize, but they intersect in ways vastly
different from the way they intersect in the U.S. But in terms of housing,
institutional treatment, political rights, government policy, and cultural
identification, Puerto Ricans of all colors are not different. In addition,
Puerto Ricans on the Island of any skin color do not perceive race as an issue.
In stark contrast to mainland Puerto Ricans, who identified deeply with black
power politics, Island Puerto Ricans, perhaps because they haven’t been
confronted with U.S. racism, do not identify as much.

In
a very real sense, Latin@s in general, and Puerto Ricans in particular, have
approximated the largely unrealized ideal of the Melting Pot. One manifestation
of Puerto Ricans’ racial perspectives is that there isn’t the same taboo on
racial intermarriage that exists in the U.S. Puerto Ricans have intermarried
and continue to intermarry at a higher rate than the U.S. In addition, the
emphasis on strong extended family ties makes the world of most Puerto Rican
children one that is inhabited by people of many different colors and these
colors are not associated with a racial caste system. This intermingled rainbow
of colors taken for granted by Puerto Ricans is foreign to most children in the
U.S.

Thanks for your personal marvelous posting! I definitely enjoyed reading it, you may be a great author.I will ensure that I bookmark your blog and definitely will come back someday. I want to encourage you continue your great writing, have a nice holiday weekend!

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My life experiences have led me to strive to help others move their lives in a positive direction, exploring opportunities that would otherwise be closed to them. I like to think I sit at the crossroads of the dialectic between knowledge and action. I hope that what transpires here is reflective of my beliefs.